


the only way to last and the only way to live it (Lucky13 #11)

by megyal



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 05:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3597696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is no one else here. Everyone is gone."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the only way to last and the only way to live it (Lucky13 #11)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashcat/gifts).



> Trope: apocalypse for photoash@LJ. Title from 'Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It' by Stars.
> 
> Hahah it's 2015 and I'm still trying to finish my Lucky13 fics. I will finish them though. I aM GRIMLY DETERMINED.

Steve wakes up into a quiet world.

One of the last things Steve remembered was the cold water; it seized him and pulled him into the freezing depths. He had been afraid, so very afraid, but the cold water had chilled even that emotion in place. He heard was the roaring rush of water and the sharp crumple of metal, and his best girl's voice in his ear.

His dreams were filled with a constant falling sensation, and tinted at the edges with a bright blue light. He felt tremors and rumbles, but he dreamed all throughout these deep mutters which seemed to travel through the skin of the whole world.

The first thing Steve knows is the bright light, starting as a single point straight ahead and then growing into a great pulsing umbrella of luminescence all around, dazzling and cold. When he wakes up, he is in a large, clean room; the walls seem white and smooth, but it is not bright at all. The lights have apparently been dimmed and he's grateful for it; his eyes had hurt for a few moments after he opened his eyes, but now the pain was gone.

"Hello?" he croaks, sitting up. He's dressed in a loose pair of pale-green sweatpants with a drawstring at the waist, and a v-necked, short-sleeved shirt of the same colour. He clears his throat and tries again. "Hey...anyone here?" Glancing around, he notes that there is a singular lack of clutter; in fact, there is nothing laid on the wide counter-tops which seem to be more an extension of the walls than attached to them. There are other beds like the one he's stretched out on, but they don't seem to be made of any material he's ever seen; a kind of thick plastic.

He calls out again, trying to fight down panic. In response, a line appears in the wall to his left, where there is a gap in the counters. The line works its way up the wall, across and down again, forming the shape of a door. That demarcated area slips back and slides to the right, revealing a shadowed corridor beyond. Steve tenses, looking out of the corner of his eye for an object, anything, that can be used as a weapon. 

Someone steps through the door. Or rather, something. It's distinctly human-shaped, whatever it is: legs, arms, one head, four fingers and a thumb on each hand. It's very tall, all gleaming silver, and its steps are light despite the hefty-appearance. Its a robot, Steve realises, just like the designs he'd seen in Howard's sketches.

"You're finally awake," the robot says in deep, calm voice. There is a metallic undertone which is certainly expected, but the robot's head tilts and the glowing slits which represent eyes is comforting; the accent sounds American, which is pretty great. "Welcome back."

"Looks brighter than I remember," Steve quips and offers a small smile. The robot nods. "Where am I?"

"You're in New York," the robot tells him. "The drones cut you out of the ice and carried you here. And you've been sleeping for quite some time. It's 2058," it tells him before he can ask and the number hits him like a punch to the stomach. That was...one hundred and thirteen years. That was a more than a whole lifetime.

His friends. What was left of his family. Gone, all gone. 

"Sir," the robot says and Steve realises that he had been sitting there on the bed with his head bent, hands hanging loosely between his thighs. "I will be back in a moment." Steve is grateful for that, because there are tears burning in his eyes. The robot steps back, about to turn on its heel.

"What's your name," Steve asks, flatly; he tilts his head to look at it out of the corner of his eye. "You _do_ have a name, right?"

The robot hesitates, the light dimmed in its eyes. "I am the first in the EL series. EL-1."

"Okay," Steve says and takes a shuddering breath. EL-1 turns around and walks away; the door remains open and the corridor beyond doesn't seem as dark as it had been before.

Steve says, "Okay," again and covers his face with his hands.

\--

"Eli, where is everybody else?" Steve asks a few hours later, as he ventures out to most of the corridors and empty rooms in the building. He finds that there is food, quite a lot of it, in a room that is labelled PANTRY but should really be called a warehouse; there are rows of shelves, and large refrigerators with glass doors. At one end of the pantry is a kitchen large enough to serve any popular restaurant. In fact, he has to walk through the kitchen to get into the pantry. There is a shutter door at the opposite end of the pantry, and the neat black lettering above it indicate that this is the GREENHOUSE; the glowing button on the side of the wall is lit a sullen red, quite unlike the green ones which had given him access. 

There are no windows which look out to the outside of this structure, but Steve can easily spot grate-covered apertures, which are mostly likely air extractor and exchange systems, situated high above where wall meets ceiling. 

"Eli?" he says again, standing in the middle of the kitchen with his hands on his hips. He'd insisted on referring to EL-1 as Eli, and the robot hadn't offered any word of dissent "Eli, where--"

"There is no one else here." Eli's voice emanates from behind him, and Steve flinches in surprise. He turns around, but the robot is nowhere to be seen. "Everyone is gone." 

There must some kind of public-announcement system that the robot uses, because Steve is peering all over the darn place, and the metal-man isn't in sight. Eli's voice bleeds out from the same level as the air control panels.

"What do you mean," he says, very slowly. " _Gone_. Gone from this building?"

"Gone," Eli responds with a flat promptness. "No signs of human life within range. The current radius of my scanners are ten thousand five hundred kilometers. I am attempting to upgrade scan limits, because I have recently detected faint signals from Surat."

Steve staggers; he can't help it. This is too much. He manages to make it to one of the high stools and falls onto it, slumping over the clean, cold prep-surface.

"Where's Surat?" he asks.

"A city in the state of Gujarat. In India," Eli says and Steve just wants to go back to sleep forever.

"Where did everyone go?" Steve hears the plaintive note in his own voice. It is a lonely, tired sound. All this enhancement, all this speed and strength and quick healing, and he couldn't help anyone.

"A sickness," Eli answers, and Steve finds it distantly interesting that the machine can sound so gentle and hollow at the same time. "A disease Everyone is gone."

Steve clenches his fists and beats on the plain white surface. "Stop saying that!" he screams, and the shrill sound bounces around the room. "How can...how can they be _gone_." He takes in a few shaking breaths. His next question is more for himself: "Why am I still here?"

"The super-serum," Eli answers, his disembodied voice floating overhead. "And you were protected by the ice in the major stages. Even so, you were exposed in transit to this location, and yet your immune system has continued to overcome the virus. You are the cure, but you were found too late."

Steve sits for a moment, very still. "Who made you?" he finally asks, still not looking up. His own voice sounds very flat. "Who owns this place."

"It doesn't matter," Eli tells him.

\--

Eli shows him quite a few things; there are computers, so much smaller than the behemoths he remembers, and a 'network' and an 'internet', parts of which still function due to Eli's fantastic reach. Steve reads the increasingly frantic headlines of newspapers, of panic and fire and ruin. The articles dwindle as time passes, and one headline leaps out as one of the last: REMEMBER US.

For a few days after, Steve lives in a dark cloud, desperate and unhappy. The news from Surat is another blow: the signals had been part of an automated system. Steve is alone.

\--

Steve's sleep is uneasy. There is a sudden, sharp pain in his forearm, and he sits up, seizing the person who means him harm. When his mind clears a little, he blinks up at Eli; a rectangle of light from the corridor illuminates the shape of the robot bent over him, a syringe in one hand.

"What are you doing," Steve garbles out and Eli wrenches out of his grip, darting out of his room. "Wait!" He flings himself out of bed and races after the robot, which is fast but not as quick as Steve thought it would have been. Eli runs down a hall down which Steve had not been before, and a door slides open on the left. The robot swerves in and Steve is hot on its heels before the door can slide shut. Skidding to a halt, he stares around the tall space: lengths of clear tubing hang from the ceiling, leading to metallic pods which line the walls. Eli is over some sort of workstation, pouring Steve's blood inside a tiny, spinning machine.

"Eli," Steve says, pushing aside his current wonder to stalk over to the robot. "What is this--"

"He's saving my life, back off," a new voice breaks in and Steve whirls around. One of the pods is open--no, it's not open; there is a front panel that was solid a few moments ago; it is now transparent. A man glares out at him, dark hair long and lanky around his face. The strange man's gaze is unsettling and familiar at the same time.

Steve is so stunned that all he can say is, "Eli said there was no-one else."

The man grins, and Steve notices that quite a few of the tubes are embedded into his neck and shoulders.

"He lies," the man says, offhand. "I taught him that."

"I'm sorry," Eli says, still standing over the small mechanism. "I had to make sure that you passed all tests...and that your blood would help."

"Does it?" Steve asks, cold and hot at the same time.

Eli nods, face still emotionless. "The results are promising. Again, I am sorry. I meant no harm."

Steve shakes his head and then turns towards the man in the pod. He wonders if there are more people in the other pods, but the man's expression has him pinned in place.

"I know you," the man says. His voice modulates oddly as it presses through the thick barrier. "You're Steve Rogers. My father spoke a lot about you. Years ago."

"Who's your father?" Steve asks and the man's grin widens.

"Howard Stark," the man says and Steve feels the empty world whirl around him. The man in the pod jerks his chin, obviously indicating the sturdy contraption which surrounds him. "He made the preliminary plans for these preservation units. I beefed 'em up. Built real strong, baby."

Steve inhales in slowly, clenching his hands at his sides.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Tony." The answer is quick, with a mocking laugh woven into that simple name; something about it causes Steve to relax, fingers uncurling from fists, shoulders slumping. This Tony isn't exactly the best of company...

...but he isn't alone anymore.

_fin_


End file.
